Tweens At Critical Time for Smoking, Drinking

Children between the ages of 10 and 12 are ambivalent toward cigarettes and alcohol, making this an important time to prevent substance abuse, according to new research.

“We need to be concerned when kids are ambivalent because this is when they may be more easily swayed by social influences,” said Dr. Roisin O’Connor of Concordia University.

The new research, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, co-led by psychologists O’Connor and Dr. Craig Colder of State University of New York at Buffalo, found that these youngsters have both positive and negative associations with cigarettes and alcohol and have yet to decide one way or the other.

Because they are especially susceptible to social influences, media portrayals of drug use and peer pressure can become deciding factors during these formative years on whether to smoke or drink.

“Initiation and escalation of alcohol and cigarette use occurring during late childhood and adolescence makes this an important developmental period to examine precursors of substance use,” said O’Connor. “We conducted this study to have a better understanding of what puts this group at risk for initiating substance use so we can be more proactive with prevention.”

The study showed that at the impulsive, automatic level, these kids thought these substances were bad but they were easily able to overcome these biases and think of them as good when asked to place them with positive words.

According to O’Connor, drinking and smoking among this age group is influenced by both impulsive (acting without thinking) and controlled (weighing the pros against the cons) decision-making. The study examined both decision-making processes to try to understand the risks for beginning to smoke or drink.

About 400 children between the ages of 10 and 12 participated in a computer-based test that involved targeted tasks. The tweens were asked to place pictures of cigarettes and alcohol with negative or positive words. The correct categorization of some trials, for example, involved placing pictures of alcohol with a positive word in one category and placing pictures of alcohol with negative words in another category.

“From this we saw how well the participants were able to categorize the pictures in the way that was asked. Using a mathematical formula of probabilities, we were able to identify how often responses were answered with impulsive and thoughtful processes as they related to drinking and smoking,” said O’Connor.

The next step is to look at kids over a longer period of time, she said. The hypothesis is that as tweens begin to use these substances, there will be an apparent weakening in their negative biases toward drinking and smoking.

The desire will eventually outweigh the costs, O’Connor said. It is also expected that they will continue to outweigh the pros relative to the cons related to substance use.

“We would like to track kids before they use substances and follow them out into their first few years of use and see how these processes play out,” she said. “Ultimately, we would like to help kids with that thoughtful piece.

“There is such a big focus now on telling kids substances are bad, but from our study we are seeing that they already know they are bad, therefore that is not the problem,” O’Connor said. “The problem is the likelihood of external pressures that are pushing them past their ambivalence so that they use. In a school curriculum format, I see helping kids deal with their ambivalence in the moment when faced with the choice to use or not use substances.”

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Janice Wood

Janice Wood is a long-time writer and editor who began working at a daily newspaper before graduating from college. She has worked at a variety of newspapers, magazines and websites, covering everything from aviation to finance to healthcare.